In the process industries, incident investigations repeatedly show that deficiencies in evacuation guidance systems contribute to casualties during fires, explosions, and toxic releases. Effective guidance that performs reliably under such hazardous conditions is therefore a critical component of process safety and loss prevention. However, traditional evacuation drills often lack realism, repeatability, and inclusivity, limiting their value for hazard mitigation and safety system optimisation. This study develops a Virtual Reality (VR)-based evacuation simulation platform designed for both safety training and empirical evaluation of evacuation guidance strategies. The system models a five-story enclosed building with configurable layouts, emergency broadcasts, and multiple signage types (graphic-only, text-based, combined, and enhanced with directional or supplementary cues). It enables safe, repeatable testing of human response to process-related emergency scenarios, recording detailed behavioural metrics such as movement trajectories, decision points, and evacuation time. In the case study, 88 % of participants deviated from the designated route at least once, and several intersections showed 10–30 misjudgements. Misjudgement frequency strongly predicted evacuation time, and the optimal signage–broadcast configurations substantially reduced average evacuation times for both hearing-impaired and cognitively impaired participants. The results revealed frequent navigation errors and highlighted guidance combinations tailored to different user needs, such as prominent door and wall signage for hearing-impaired individuals and early verbal alerts aligned with visual cues for those with cognitive impairments. This work introduces a practical tool for loss prevention in the process industries, supporting the design and verification of evacuation systems, training programs, and architectural layouts in alignment with process safety objectives.
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